Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
Brian Sotile
a Intermediate

Date Reviewed: March 4, 2013

Strengths: Sharpness

Weaknesses: Build quality

Bottom Line:

I bought the AF version of this lens from Amazon about 5yrs ago for < $200. It has been used as the indoor walk around lens for my Sony A700, primarily family gatherings and office functions. Sharpness is good throughout focal range and colors are acceptable. However, build quality is poor and I hate the push/ pull zoom. The lens is noisy and does hunt some. I just purchased a Sony A77 and acquired a legacy Minolta 28-105mm. If the Minolta works out like other Minolta lenses in my collection, the Vivitar will be up for sale. It will be perfect for a photographer on a budget who desires a cheap, effective lens.

Strengths: - Sharp wide open
- Contrasty and nice color rendetion
- Beautiful bokeh.
- Useful FL 28-105 with useful 2.8-3.8
- If I am not mistaken it has 9 aperture blades (I left it at home while making this review).

Weaknesses: - Push pull zoom, sometimes not convenience to use, but it makes zooming faster though.
- Varifocus. I wish I don't have to re-adjust the focus after zooming.

Bottom Line:

I grab this lens in HK quite cheap. I have the cosina brand version with 72mm filter size. Never read about this lens before, but after 1-2 shots tried at the shop and see the result from my ist DS LCD, I felt something special about this lens and bought it before back to the airport and go home. Never regret a bit. This lens is very sharp and contrasty when we got the focus spot on. I also fell in love with the bokeh it produces, very smooth and the color also render very well...oh 1 more thing, it is a KA mount.....so it only lack auto focus on my digital body.

I purchased this lens in 92 for a trip that unfortunately I never took. I put it away and forgot I even had it. I have the 67mm with rubberized grip, etc. This is an excellent lens. I just wish I could find a way to use it with my more recent camera purchases.

The optics are still superb and the zoom feel is perfect. Hope this helps.

Weaknesses: Hard to be sure you have the rigth version of the Series 1 28-105mm lens.

Bottom Line:

These reviews are not all reviewing the same Vivitar Series 1 lens. As was mentioned by one reviewer, there are two versions with a 67mm filter size and one with a 72mm filter size for a total of 3 series 1 lenses in this focal length.

The one of the three that is far and away the best in the one that looks just like the picture at the top of the reviews and has a 67mm filter size. It has a lens/grouping of 14/12. It is metal, shiny, heavy, solid, and with no slack in the zoom barrel. It produces beautiful shots that are pleasantly saturated and very little distortion at the wide open 28mm. It is a great lens that causes confusion due to its three different iterations. The one I have, which is the 14/12 with 67mm filter and Series 1 embossed on the fat rubber grip ring is an excellent buy and highly recommended.

Strengths: The pictures are very sharp. The faster lens permits working in much lower light or with slower film (100 instead of 400). The viewfinder prism is much easier to see and focus with due to the brightness of the lens. With the included lens hood I did not have flare even in sunny winter weather. It can take well detailed close ups in its "macro" range, but the lens is not quite the equal of a real 1x1 macro lense, such as the Vivitar 100mm. But due to the good sharp detail, the close up photo can then be enlarged beyond life size and still look impressively detailed.

Weaknesses: The "varifocus" quality of the lense means that it needs slight refocusing when it is zoomed in or out. The zoom aspect of the lens is the push-pull variety, but fairly loose, so it can slide up or down when pointing the camera upward or downward. The left hand needs to brace the lense at the selected zoom when shooting at these angles. At 105mm and in closer macro focus distances, the lense locks into 105 range and stays there, a plus.

Bottom Line:

This lens is much brighter to look through than similar 28-80mm zoom lenses, due to the 2.8-3.8 aperture. The objective lense is really enormous in comparison to typical zoom lenses, which is probably why it is a full f stop faster (2.8 to 3.8) and capable of tack sharp pictures. As a black and white type photographer using a manual focus Nikon, brightness and sharpness are crucial. This lens delivers very sharp photos in black and white when well focused. My camera has never seen a roll of color film, so I can't comment on its capabilities to produce color images.